Dustin Hoffman Slapped Meryl Streep For Real on the Set of ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’

In an upcoming book about Meryl Streep, excerpted next month in Vanity Fair, biographer Michael Schulman writes about the tumultuous environment on the set of Kramer vs. Kramer, the Oscar-winning 1979 film that launched Streep into three decades (and counting) of acting dominance. Of course, tumultuous is one thing; Dustin Hoffman delivering an unscripted slap to Streep while they were filming a scene is another.

On the second day, they continued shooting the opening scene, when Ted follows the hysterical Joanna into the hallway. They shot the bulk of it in the morning and, after lunch, set up for some reaction shots. Dustin and Meryl took their positions on the other side of the apartment door. Then something happened that shocked not just Meryl but everyone on set. Right before their entrance, Dustin slapped her hard across the cheek, leaving a red mark.

Stories of Dustin Hoffman’s method acting, particularly in the 1970s, are not unusual. There’s that fabulous story that’s probably more Hollywood legend than fact at this point, about Laurence Olivier on the set of Marathon Man scoffing at Hoffman’s more extreme methods of getting into character, ultimately asking the young hotshot “Have you ever tried acting?”

On the Kramer set, it seems Hoffman took it upon himself to get Streep’s character into her fraught state of mind by any means necessary, even going so far as to bring up Streep’s recently deceased boyfriend John Cazale.

Improvising his lines, Dustin delivered a slap of a different sort: outside the elevator, he started taunting Meryl about John Cazale, jabbing her with remarks about his cancer and his death. “He was goading her and provoking her,” Fischoff recalled, “using stuff that he knew about her personal life and about John to get the response that he thought she should be giving in the performance.”

Meryl, Fischoff said, went “absolutely white.” She had done her work and thought through the part. And if Dustin wanted to use Method techniques like emotional recall, he should use them on himself. Not her.

This was only the beginning of the tense relationship between Hoffman and Streep, a dynamic that would be reflected in the onscreen battles between their characters. The Streep biography paints a compelling picture, with Streep fighting hard for the integrity of her character — a woman who leaves her husband and only to return later and press for custody — while Hoffman and his method tricks was seeing a lot of his own real-life divorce in the story he was acting out.

It’s a fascinating behind-the-scenes story, one worthy of the rich and relevant movie that Kramer vs. Kramer remains to this day. Streep and Hoffman, two titans of their industry, engaging in a kind of acting mortal combat. After reading all about it, it’s hard not to think that Streep was the one who came out victorious.